


Immovable, unbreakable: the comment fics

by Cards_Slash



Series: Immovable Series [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Omega, Kid Fic, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 05:26:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10483080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: a collection of comment fics originally written on tumblr.





	1. Chapter 1

There was always work to be done; correspondence that needed answering, planning that needed finished, new threats to be analyzed or even just dragging Altair away from the golden allure of the Apple.  Malik’s days were full from beginning to end with things that needed doing but, in the early afternoon when the practice yard was cleared of everyone except the youngest of future assassin’s, he found himself sitting by the window where he could see clearest.

Tazim was made like his father, every muscle in his body perfectly sculpted to his bones, giving the mistaken impression that the boy was very weak.  He was already ten but his face was round and soft like it had been when he was a baby.  The other kids didn’t tease him in the practice ring–not out of respect as Tazim assumed, but out of fear of retribution.  

–

Jaida was too _young_ , that was what Tazim always told her.  He was the gatekeeper to her every aspiration, shoving her back into bed in the morning when Mother went to practice in the yard.  Father was still sleeping too heavily to interrupt and even if he hadn’t been, Tazim still would have hissed, “you’re just a baby, Jaida,” at her in the dark.  But he took Sef, who was over a year younger, and still clumsy and whiny before breakfast

Jaida was a _woman_ , that was what Tazim said to her every morning, and afternoon and night.  He said it after breakfast when he went to play with the other boys, to play-act in the village at being thieves and assassins.  He’d gotten taller and stronger by running with Rana and Rauf’s sons.  Jaida tried to follow him and he shoved her back, and he said: “you’re a woman, Jaida,” and he took Sef (who did not even like to climb) with him.

Jaida was _weak_ , that is what Tazim didn’t say when he rolled his eyes at her in the practice yard.  They had only come to watch the novices train with their wooden swords but still Tazim pushed her away from the ring.  He didn’t tell her why, just pushed her back.  He made a pocket of space for the brother that he had not even wanted.  (So said their parents, with a laugh, as they told the story of Tazim deciding to run away from Masyaf.)  

–

Mother found her crying around a corner in the highest tower.  He was dressed for travel, with a pack of supplies weighing down one of his shoulders.  It slid off his arm as he looked at her.  There was never any telling what Mother thought of anything, much less what he thought of Jaida–the stupid, weak, baby, _girl_.  

“What has happened?” Mother asked.  He did not sit with her but crouch in front of her so the long tails of his assassin uniform dragged in the dust on the floor.  He did not try to touch her but watch her face as she scrubbed her fists into her eyes in any attempt to stop herself from crying.    


“I’m a girl!” she screamed at him.  


That made Mother look at her strangely, and he shifted so he was sitting in front of her, settling into place the very same way he did when it was time for bed.  The sword rattled in its scabbard as he adjusted it at his side, and then he looked back at her.  “Jaida,” he said, “you may be whatever you wish to be.  You may chose whatever path suits you.”

Jaida was miserable with swollen eyes and snot on her face, she looked at Mother–very tall, and very strong.  “Tazim says I cannot.”

“That does not mean is true.”  


“Tell him to stop,” Jaida said.  


Mother, whose face had not been made for expressions, looked sad then.  If only for a moment.  He said, “the only way to change his mind is to prove him wrong,” Mother said.  “If I tell him to stop, he will always believe he is right.”

Jaida kicked her foot against the floor and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.  She sniffled while Mother watched her, and he smiled at her when she said, “then show me how to prove him wrong.”

–

Tazim was nine when Jaida was almost six.  He started training with the other young boys, learning basic moves and endurance.  Jaida watched him from a slanting-shadow, as the other boys laughed at her brother.  He was fast, and lean, and just as smart as their Father.  But he had a pale, pretty face and the other boys mocked him for it.  

Jaida watched them laugh at him, and she watched them in practice, trying to make their clumsy movies graceful.  

Out in the village, when the boys were walking home together, they hiccuped their insults to one another, catching and passing around the same laugh.  Jaida followed them at a distance, just close enough to hear them make predictions about how her brother would be just like his Mother before him.  

–

Mother was, as near as Jaida could figure, the only one of his kind.  The other children that came to the castle had female Mothers.  The other children snickered and whispered when they saw Mother.

When she was almost six, she said, “Mother, why aren’t you a girl?”

Mother said, “i was born as I am.”

“Are there more of you?” she asked.  


Mother said, “there are, but there are less now than in the past.”  And he considered the whole matter closed with only that.

–

Jaida would have avenged her brother without extra incentive.  It was just that, there was no man or woman in all of Masyaf that she loved more than she loved her Mother.  No other person in all of the world, it seemed, that deserved the same respect.

So she followed the boys to a curve in the road where there was a clear spot she could fight them, and she introduced herself to them with the help of a stick she’d brought from the castle.  She’d gotten good at using it as a weapon–she’d perfected her aim and the swing to maximized the effect it had when it landed.  She’d only used it against rails and stones, and never against flesh, but it struck the first boy in the side of his face and it made the most fantastic, elastic popping sound.  

The boy was coughing blood when the others screamed at her in outrage.  

Jaida looked at them–all four of them, all of them taller and stronger than her, and she said, “you will never speak to my brother with that such disrespect again.”

“You’re regret this,” one of the boys shouted at her.  


Jaida was _afraid_ , but she did not back away from them.  She did not let them see it in her face.  Mother had told her, all of her opponents would look for her fear and she should never give it to them.  When they came to attack her, she did not cry or run, but meet them with a scream.

–

Jaida waited all of a day, and a night, and a day again.  She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, in the full sunlight, and watched the boys in the practice yard.  They had bruises and welts and cuts on them from the fight.  She had limped home, clutching her wrist in her good hand with her stick clamped under her arm.  

Jaida had drawn their blood and had exacted her revenge.

But no boy among the group named her as the assailant.  Not a single boy told Rauf, or her Father, or Mother.  Not a single parent came to the castle to demand justice.  They simply continued to practice.  The cluster of boys with loose mouths and stupid ideas never looked at her, and they never laughed at her brother’s pale, pretty face again.

–

When Jaida was six (at last) and Father was always working, she found him at his desk to shout at him.  She screamed, “it was me!  I was the one that beat them!   _I_  did it and they are _cowards_  that will not admit it!”

Father sent away the man he had been speaking to and regarded her quietly.  His face betrayed his every thought, cycling through what he guessed to be the truth before it arrived at something like _pride._ It was an expression she had seen often when Father looked at his sons, and she could not remember crossing his face when he saw her.  “They are cowards,” Father said.  “They would rather lie than admit that they were defeated by you.  Did you fight them all at once?”

Jaida was _furious_ , “of course I did!  They are never separate.”  But more importantly, “if they do not tell, then Tazim will not know.  He won’t believe it from me, I am only a stupid girl to him.”

Father sighed then.  “They will never tell, Jaida.  Tazim will know, when he is old enough to figure it out.”

There it was again, the useless tears on her face.  Her face was hot and her fists were clenching uselessly up into fists she could not use.  “Then he will never figure it out.”

“He will,” Father promised.  “You must be patient.  If it seems that he cannot figure it out or you cannot be patient, perhaps you could show him directly.”  


Jaida wiped her nose on the back of her fist, “he would be like the other boys, he would never admit I had done it.”

Father shrugged, “sometimes, if we cannot be moved to discovering the truth on our own, we must be pushed.”

–

Altair found Malik at the window, watching the children practicing in the yard.  Tazim led his group with effortless mastery (and hours, and hours of practice and effort).  His mastery was cased in fragile ego, and bolstered by his arrogant smiles.  “She will never fight him,” Altair said.

“Did you ask her not to?” Malik asked.  


Jaida was not with the other boys, or even with the spectators.  She was hidden around a corner–slim and silent and waiting, the same as she had always been.  She came every day to watch a while and then she left again without being seen.  Every day Altair came to look for her, and every day it was a little more difficult to find her.  

“No,” Altair said.  “You know what I would do if I were her.  Our son would have no teeth.”

Malik sighed at that, “then why wouldn’t she?” he looked away from the yard to look at Altair.  “Why would she let him think she is weak?”

“To protect him,” Altair said.  “She’ll surpass him, easily.  Tazim will become a scholar, maybe.  He’ll master strategy and he’ll send plans and make choices from here, but Jaida will fight.”

“What of Sef?” Malik asked.  


They looked together, at their youngest son, playing with stones and mud in the yard while the other boys trained to be killers.  The boy was not quite five and content to be young.  

“I don’t know,” Altair said.    


Malik smiled at that.  “So there _is_  something you do not know!”  


	2. Altmal, R, Altair ends up pregnant again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated R for Sexual Content, Bad Language, Mpreg

Rated R for Sexual Content, Bad Language, Allusions to everything in Immovable, unbreakable.

 **21 days**  
Luck had never sided with Altair.  Fortune had never graced him with her lovely presence.  Probability had never fallen in his favor but stuck him living a life on perpetual ‘against all odds’ status.  And when it was useful it was very useful and when it was not, it was terrible.

All this, and still he could not shake the idea that the likelihood he could even have a child (at his age) was so slim as to be ridiculous and therefore there was no reason at all to weather the unpleasantness of his fever in solitude.  When he presented the sum of his ideas to Malik, across their bed (bursting with children, one might say, completely corrupted with the soft cheeks and wayward limbs of their son and daughter), Malik had scoffed into the darkness.  

“You think I’m wrong?” Altair asked.

But Malik’s answer was a hum.  The sort of sound that he made when he was willing to allow Altair his specious arguments.  His only protest was, “there is nobody that will take Jaida.”

–

Masyaf was full of ears and old debts.  The faces of the men and women in the dusty huts at the base of the hill were the same as they had been when he was a child.  Each of them distinctly untrustworthy, each of them an old threat that watched him with newly glad stares–they were pleased and content to know he watched over them now.  But Altair had seen enough of them in his life to know they would turn against him when convenient.  

And none of them, no matter how grateful they were for this era of peace and prosperity, would take Jaida.  

“But where are you going,” Tazim asked when they reached the door of Rana’s house.  His studious face was drawn down into a pinch, his careful eyes trying to work out the clues he had been given.  “Why can’t Jaida go with you?”

“We will not be gone long,” Altair said (or at all, as they were only going to be in their room and not even outside of the castle at all), “You will have to help look after Jaida.”

Tazim wrinkled his lip at such a suggestion.  He crossed his arms over his chest and glared hatefully at the door when Rana opened it.  She was welcoming and warm–with mothering arms and a sweet face cooing soft words to his mean-spirited children.  Jaida did not wait to be handed away but turn to look at him with her mouth twisted open in betrayal and the first of many (inconsolable) cries tumbling out across her trembling lips.

–

Guilt, Altair had found, was not stronger than lust.  He did not bother himself with guilt often (or for very long at all).  His daughters petulant screams bothered him only as far as he could hear them, and only for the brief time before he climbed the stairs to find Malik already waiting in their room.

“Take your clothes off,” was the only greeting he had time to spare.  

–

“If you get pregnant again, Tazim will likely leave us for better parents,” Malik said.  He was tacky with sweat and spent from the effort of meeting Altair’s demands.  It seemed that age had slowed him but it had not dulled the intensity of want that nagged at Altair.

He could be patient though, when the promise of satisfaction was so close.  “I will not get pregnant,” he said.  “I am too old.”

Malik’s eyebrow lifted at that notion.  “I am too old,” he countered, “perhaps you will need to find someone better suited to your needs in the future.”

Altair hissed at the words; at some combination of the filthy suggestion he let someone else touch him or that Malik might even allow it.  He rolled so he was on his knees over Malik, pinning his arm to the bed.  “I have no needs you cannot meet,” he said.  (And then he kissed him, and made delicious, perfect use of Malik’s body.)

 

**14 Weeks**

The events might have happened in slow motion.

The early morning kitchens were a busy, crowded affair and each of the women that worked in them had given up their attempts to win Jaida’s affection.  While they had been full of joy that Tazim had survived his first year (and second) they seemed bitterly disappointed to see Jaida had not succumbed to some terrible childhood illness.  She was fussing (but not crying) as she always did, with her fingers in a bowl of mush and her mouth displaying her constant, unhappiness with any food offered that did not come fresh from her Mother.  

Tazim jogged to the kitchen still wearing his gift of novice robes (made very small to fit him as he was a very small boy), play-acting at something he could not understand.  But Altair had foolishly offered them to the boy and then even more foolishly found someone to sew them for him.  “Father!” Tazim shouted as he knocked into Malik’s side.  “Father, I beat Mother in the training ring.”

Altair came after him, with a bleeding wound on his forearm (an obvious source of pride from their son) and a great red streak of red still drying across his hand and fingers.  

“Oh dates!” Tazim said (with such honest glee) before he hopped over to fetch a fresh date from one of the women who was carrying them out.  He thanked her and ran back again, shoving the fruit into his mouth and biting into with such relish that Malik had to smile at him.  

“How did,” Malik started to say–

But Altair made an inhuman sort of noise and stumbled away from the table to an open doorway (scandalizing the poor woman who was trying to exit as well) when he shoved her aside.  The sound of his vomiting was loud enough that even Jaida stopped complaining to be horrified.  

“What happened to Mother?” Tazim asked.  The stink of the fruit between his teeth was pronounced enough that there was simply no confusing the cause of Altair’s sudden illness.  “Is he alright?” the boy asked.  “I should go and check on him.”

“Ah,” Malik said.  He caught Tazim by the back of the shirt.  “Mother will be fine.  Finish your fruit.  And go and wash your mouth out after.”  He looked up in time to see Altair straightening up in the door way, his face all spotted red and his head shaking back and forth as he looked at the two children and then pressed his fist against his own gut.  “You should be happy!” Malik said.  “You are not as old as you thought.”

Altair rolled his eyes and rather than respond, simply left.

 

**7 Months**

Altair hated being pregnant.  But it always overcame him in the end, in the long-late months when there was no denying the presence of the living thing inside of him and Malik was caught in the delicate balance between joy and patience.

Tazim had no compunctions about announcing his displeasure at every possible opportunity.  It had started in their room, at bed time, when the boy had tears in his eyes and his hands in fists, yelling against the unfairness.  He had selected Malik as a target of his rage (for reasons that Altair could not be sure of, as it had not been entirely Malik’s doing) when he cried, “you said you wouldn’t!  You said you wouldn’t have any more!  And now there will be another and it will be just like Jaida and everyone will hate it just like Jaida!”

The time between then and now had not sweetened the notion of having to cope with another sibling for Tazim.  It had afforded Jaida the distinct joy of laying her little pink cheek against the stretched skin of Altair’s gut as if she could hear the thing growing inside of him.  Her little fingers were tenderest kisses against his belly, finding the places where the unborn child kicked his feet.  She had learned to walk in seven months, learned to make sounds and to smile and to eat food with her fat little fingers.  

Altair had never wondered what drove others to have children save for the biological demand that had brought him to this unhappy end, but he thought there might have been a reason in the way Jaida smiled at him with unashamed joy.  

“You will not like it once it is out.”  He stroked her hair so it fit behind her perfect ear.  “Tazim did not like you once you were out.”  But Jaida only smiled. 


	3. altmal, R, non-graphic birth, Tazim is born

Altmal | R | non-graphic birth, “strong” language

 

Altair was not ignorant of his condition or the seriousness of it.  Mary had been persistent and blunt about childbirth.  She had explained it to him in graphic (horrifying) detail.  In fact, she had gone so far as to seek out male omegas and hear their (also horrifying) stories of birth.  So it was not a lack of understanding that kept him from the surgeons.  He was very aware what the pain tightening in bands around his abdomen was from.  

 

Mary had said, “if you cannot be sensible for your own sake,” (because they both knew he was not the best at judging how risky a situation truly was), “or the child’s,” (because she had guessed at his ambivalence toward the thing that turned and kicked inside of him), “think of Malik.”

 

Oh-and-he thought of Malik as he carried the pot of water up the steps.  He thought of Malik’s quietly-hidden-happiness at being a father.  He thought of his ingrained need to touch and hold.  He thought of how painfully he would remove his ability (if not his desire) to have any more children.  Altair thought of Malik very loudly and very constantly as he dragged blankets behind him.  

He made a place to lay in an abandoned room at the top of the castle but he did not lay down.  

 

Altair rubbed his back as he paced across the floor over-and-over.  The pain that started in the dark of the morning had condensed and tightened until every fresh wave of it made his vision go dim and his teeth grind.  

 

Oh, Altair thought of Malik in violent stabs while he waited for the man’s frantic searching to lead him to Altair.

 

–

 

There was the idea that perhaps, the child would come before Malik found him.   It was the sort of idea that had no resolution.  Altair was not afraid of pain (and he had been advised there would be a great deal of it, and there had been).  The pain while not inconsequential was unimportant to him.  The thing that nagged him while he pressed his forehead to the wall and counted seconds-like-years waiting for this contraction to finish was that he was not sure he trusted himself with the child.  Altair had no reason to believe that he’d know what to do with the thing once it was out of him.  

 

Worse, there was a half-realized thought in his head wondering (again and again) if perhaps he would just let the child die.  

 

–

 

Malik found Altair in the highest part of the castle.  (And after an exhaustive search of lower rooms, he had to wonder why he had ever thought Altair might have been somewhere else.)  Altair was fond of the highest spaces, most especially when he was hurt.  

 

“You idiot!” Malik shouted at him when he found him.  

 

Altair was crouching with his hands gripping the wall over his head.  His knees were bent and spread wide as he leaned forward.  Every part of his body was coated in sweat and the sound he made as the quivering tension in the whole of his body released was a gasp of pain unlike anything Malik had heard him utter before.  “Who is stupider?  Me for hiding or you for wasting your time searching anywhere else?”

 

Worry was more significant than anger.  Malik went over to him, “how long have you been like this?”

 

Altair was rubbing his forehead against the damp backs of his hands.  “Since it was dark.”  It was nearly dark again.  He dropped one hand down to touch his belly as he tipped his head back.  “Do not waste your time trying to persuade me to see the surgeons.  If you bring them to me I will kill them _and you_.”  His sword was laying along side the poor bed he’d made of a blanket and some cushions.  There were clothes to clean the infant and a pot of water against the wall.  

 

“They are trained to–”

 

“It’s my body,” Altair snapped at him.  “it’s mine.  I do not want them staring at me.  I do not want them touching me.  I do not–”  His rant was interrupted by a pain that made his teeth snap together and his whole body curled down.  His cheeks went pink and then red with effort.  

 

“Altair!” Malik shouted at him only when he realized what the fool was doing.  “You can’t just drop a child on the ground!”

 

There was that noise again, that sound of pain so extreme it couldn’t be denied.  A half-concealed scream caught in a breathy exhale.  “Catch him then,” was all he managed to say.  His body was sagging from exhaustion when he said, “don’t bring the surgeons, Malik.  I don’t want them.  You can cut the boy out if I die but don’t bring the surgeons here.”

 

Malik touched Altair’s back and sighed.  He could fight-with-logic all the stupidity in those words but it would do no good.  He could go against Altair’s wishes now that he was exhausted enough there was limited fight in him but he would keep his promises when he recovered.  There would be blood vengeance for the shameful betrayal.  So he kissed him on the shoulder.  “If you had told me, I could have learned something useful for this.”

 

Altair huffed.  “You knew this would happen.”

 

Maybe he did.  Maybe it did not think that it would truly come to this.  It should not have been a surprise.  Altair had never gone to the surgeons to have his wounds tended.  He hadn’t allowed his novices to bandage them if they involved the removal of his clothing and he had more than once concealed a wound that should have been properly taken care of until he found the time to have Malik do it.  “I did,” he said softly.  

 

–

 

Their son was born after dark.  He was small and slimy.  Like a fish on land, squirming in discomfort and outrage.  His little hands curled into the fists that matched his Mother’s as he cried in furious disapproval of this new life he had been given.  Altair was exhausted by the effort.  He collapsed onto the cushions he’d brought up and closed his eyes to gasp for the breath he’d lost in the ordeal.  

 

“It’s a boy,” Malik said.  He sat on the edge of the blankets, not so far from Altair’s knee and held their son–slippery and screaming–up against his chest.  The square of cloth he’d intended to wrap him in was lying across his lap.  The boy’s face was pinched in aggravation, his tiny pink tongue curled with hate.  His head was covered in matted black hair as his whole body turned red with exertion.  

 

“Sounds like you,” Altair mumbled.  His face was hidden behind the arm he’d carelessly thrown across his face.  

 

Malik laid the boy into the cradle of his crossed legs and used the edge of the blanket to wipe his face clean.  The crying went on until Altair huffed a great sigh and sat up far enough to pick the boy up.  His hands were massive around the baby.  

 

“Stop,” he said to him before he laid the baby against his chest.  There was no affection in the motion, no apparent nurturing love in the way he spread his hands over the boy’s back and held him there against the warmth of his bare skin.  It was practicality in every motion.  Then he tipped his head back again and closed his eyes.  

 

Malik watched a moment, listened to the baby’s noises of confusion as they turned quiet with comfort.  Then he moved, back up onto his knees and spread the blanket over the boy to keep the chill of the air off him.  He ran his finger across the round top of his tiny pink ear and down the soft, fragile skin of his cheek.  The boy’s mouth closed around the tip of his finger and Malik smiled.  

 

Altair was looking at him when Malik glanced at his face.  His eyes were open only far enough to see and trained on Malik (and the tears that were on his face no doubt) but not the child.  “Is he what you thought he’d be?”

 

Malik touched his hair and rested a hand across his back through the blanket.  “I don’t know what I thought he would be,” Malik said.

 

“Why are you crying then?” Altair asked.  But just as quickly, “take your shirt off.  Mary said the baby would prefer to be held skin to skin.”  And when Malik stripped off his clothes to bare his chest, Altair handed him the child.  The boy cried in the swift span of minutes between resting on his Mother to when he found a comfortable place to lay against Malik.  “Don’t let him cry.”

 

“What are you going to do?” Malik asked.  

 

“Rest,” Altair said.

 

“What should we name him?” Malik asked.

 

Altair yawned before he could answer.  The sword rattled in it’s scabbard like he had reached out to feel for it.  The need for safety in that moment, the need to know that he was not helpless even while Malik marveled at the pink of his son’s perfect fingers was enough to drain the miracle of all it’s light.  Altair looked at him again after he’d secured the location of the sword and there was a strangely apologetic shame caught around the edges of his ragged exhaustion.  “What were the choices?” he asked.

 

Malik had considered (more than once) that Altair had convinced him to believe a lie.  It was strange and suspicious that Altair would have changed his mind about the desire to have a child after a lifetime of refusing to consider the idea.  In his joy at the prospect of having a son (or daughter, really) he had simply allowed himself to push that thought away.  But it came again, and with it came guilt that drown out joy.  He had done this to Altair in his ignorant haste to take what was offered.

 

“Malik,” Altair said.

 

“Darim or Tazim,” Malik answered.  “I do not think Jaida is appropriate.”

 

Altair pushed his elbow against the cushions and sat up far enough to _look_  at their child.  He brushed the hair away from his face and peered down at him in silence.  “He’s not what I thought he would be.”  And then, “Tazim suits him.”

 

“I like Tazim,” Malik said.  He watched Altair lay flat again.  “What did you think he would look like?”

 

“I did not think he would live,” Altair said.  “So I did not think of what he would be like when he was alive.  I have seen dead children before, that is what I imagined.”  He yawned again.  “Mary said he will cry when he is hungry.  Can I sleep until then?”  But he was already closing his eyes.  His hand was searching through the blankets to touch Malik’s thigh.  “Be happy, Malik,” Altair said (half-asleep), “I want you to be happy.”


	4. altmal, R?, Altair convinces Malik to have a kid

Altmal | R | Sad, mentions of everything that happened in Immovable, unbreakable, Mild sexual situations

The truth was simply that Altair had no dire need to have a child.  Given the choice (absent any outside influence) he could have quite happily gone the whole of his life without experiencing the _joy_  of parenthood.  Aside from his own feelings on the matter, there was an easy enough sense of _correctness_  in assuming that, should there be a god or fate to decide such things, he simply should not have a child.  Fate and circumstances had led to three children that either he (or his body) had failed to want or keep.  The fact that Malik _wanted_  a child had been an abrasive thought in his head for months and months in the infancy of their (true) marriage.  

 

Altair had offered the opportunity to have (another) child to Malik and been turned down.  He had offered it again and been turned down again.  The frustration of the unpaid debt nagged him.  They fought over stupid things and left the half-realized truth alone.  But the approach of (yet another) heat set Altair to pacing the cold halls of Masyaf.  He argued the points with himself, that a child would benefit them, that Malik wanted a child, that Altair took a life from him that he could never return but a child might be some small token of apology.  He fell asleep in tight corners and high perches, seeking some sense of security against indecision.

 

When he went to Malik, to convince him to have a child, he did not tell him how it was _fair_.  He did not say that it was _owed_  to him.  Altair said, “I want a child.  I want to see him somewhere besides my dreams.”  And if Malik took that to mean his dreams of the child were fond, Altair did not dissuade him of it.  The child was a nightmare that filled his head.  The only child that he’d ever made any effort to protect and still it died.  It was the only child that Altair had any reason to mourn and even if he were sad (in a way) that he could not save it, he knew that he could not have loved it.  

 

Malik knew-or-didn’t that Altair couldn’t love a child.  Malik knew-or-didn’t that his dreams were nightmares of bloody children that ran circles around him, just beyond reach.  Malik knew-or-didn’t that Altair would never stop asking until they had a child.

 

There was no pulling apart Malik’s motives for agreeing.  There was only accepting that he had.

 

–

 

His fever started in the coldest part of winter.  Altair was shivering at the blush of red need that covered his body and the uncomfortable chill of the air.  He did not tie Malik to his bed but the thought occurred to him the first time he woke up and found his husband missing.  

 

The longing was the worst part.  The physical _need_  was quenchable with enough determination.  (And truly, after Altair had given in to the sneaking seduction of orgasms, the physical discomfort was hardly worthy of note.)  His body was adamant about it’s desires to produce offspring and it brought the most painful loneliness to his skin and his heart that he had ever been forced to bear.  To know that there was a body that was meant to be beside his was far worse than the aggravating dampness of sexual desire.  

 

Malik returned with cautious footsteps and tried to apologize for his absence.  Altair dragged him down and held him there with both hands across his chest.  He bit his frustration into Malik’s mouth and freed his cock so that he could ride it.  When he was finished, he sat across Malik’s thighs and said, “leave again and I will cut the tendons in your calves.”

 

There was fear-and-humor on Malik’s face in the seconds before he rolled them.  Altair fell gladly onto his back and welcomed the brutal, affectionate kiss that Malik meant to punish him with.

 

–

 

Malik watched the calendar with more apprehension in the wake of Altair’s last heat than he had ever managed before.  The fear that set in his chest was an odd match to the giddy hope that wriggled around his guts.  There hadn’t been time before (at the bureau) to watch for the symptoms of pregnancy.  (Truth be told, he did not even know what symptoms he might want to look for at all.)  A month passed and Altair said nothing to him.  

 

A second month passed and there was no news.  Malik said nothing of his own disappointment.  He attended his share of the duties and he watched Altair for any sign of his own feelings about this momentary failure.  While Altair had never spoken with pride about his own fertility he has been very conscious of how easily he was able to get pregnant in the past.  The fact that those were unwanted circumstances (or the fact that Altair had said more than once he never wanted children of his own) did not mean he was not disappointed in this betrayal of expectations.  

 

Strange things bothered Altair.  He hated the knowledge that so many of their brothers knew he was only an omega and he never wished to be touched.  Yet he was angry when Malik didn’t touch him outside of their rooms.  (Altair had said, ‘it is because you move to touch me and then you don’t.  You mean it to respect me but it feels as if you are ashamed.’)  Touching Altair anywhere outside of the confines of their bedroom had been a dangerous affair in the beginning.

 

They’d made a bad habit of hurried fucks around bends, like Altair could accept the challenge if it meant they were trying to prove how good they were at sneaking.  It didn’t help him to tolerate affection but it was a compromise enough to bring peace.

 

–

 

At five months (after), Altair shook him awake with impatient hands.  Malik jerked upright in search of whatever fight had caused him to be jostled awake but Altair grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down.  The room was dark enough it was difficult to make out even rough shapes.  Altair pulled his hand until it was pressed against the smooth skin of his belly and then pressed against the back of his hand so he was pushing at something swollen.  

 

“What?” Malik said.  There was a push back against his palm.  An awkward bump that nudged at him from inside of Altair.  

 

“I’m pregnant,” Altair said.  The tone of his voice was flat and there was no telling the expression on his face or what reaction he wanted.  He was still when Malik pulled his hand back and kicked the blankets off.  He turned his body so he could put his hand back against Altair’s belly without feeling as if he would fall over.  Altair was patient enough to allow it and kind enough to move his hand to where he would feel the motion again.  Then he moved his hands away and was silent in the dark while Malik smiled at the motion of his child.  

 

It was a strange thing to have such great happiness in utter silence.  He hovered a moment, stretched the time until he could feel the palpable discomfort becoming a living thing.  He moved (with reluctance) and laid back up by Altair’s side.  “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”

 

“I thought it would die,” Altair said quietly.  “They all have.  Mary says this one is strong.  She says that if I want to keep it I have to protect it.  Masyaf will have to know.”  There was shame in those words that were painful to hear in the light of the miracle.  “You can be happy, Malik.  I want you to be.”

 

“I am,” Malik assured him.  

 

–

 

There was one man with a quick mouth and a bawdy laughed that remarked how Altair had finally been fucked properly.  The words were not meant for Malik to hear.  They were spoken out in the yard when Malik was on his way from the gates of the castle to the door.  He was not wearing his black robe (or truly anything that was significant to identify him).  The idiot was well hidden in a cluster of lazing assassins waiting for a turn in the ring.  

 

Malik considered leaving the words to be said.  (The way he had often said similar ones as a boy.)  Rather than forgiving the insult, he looked to his side where Aaron was sighing.  The boy was a quick-study in many things and a constant companion.  He looked around their feet before bending to scoop up a flat rock and offering it to him.

 

“Would you like me to go fetch him?” Aaron asked.  “I’d think he’d like to see this.”

 

“He will hear of it,” Malik said.  Then he stepped away from Aaron toward the cluster of assassins.  Their respect for Altair was absolute (or so they said).  They feared him as a warrior and obeyed him as a leader but their mouths were loose with stories of how omegas were meant to be fucked.

 

It was only a sad truth, how great Altair might have been if only he’d been born an alpha.  Malik’s hand clenched around the rock in his hand in the brief seconds before the fool with the fat mouth recognized his mistake.  His friends scattered like bugs, flying backwards in a failed attempt to save their own hides.  The man himself was opening his mouth to apologize when Malik smacked him across the face with the unforgiving hardness of the rock.  It cracked his face loud enough there was no mistaking the injury to the bone under his skin.  The man fell in the dirt with a yelp of pain and was wise enough to stay down.  

 

“Rauf!” Malik shouted.

 

Rauf had already jumped out of the training ring to run over to see the damage.  “Yes?” he said.  

 

“These men have too much time on their hands.  Give them something to do.”  Then Malik threw the rock at the whimpering body on the ground and looked at each of the shame-faced boys.  He left them to Rauf’s terrible punishment before rejoining Aaron.  

 

Altair was standing by the open doors of the castle with an amused quirk to his lips.  He stayed there until Malik walked up to him.  “That will not stop their talking,” Altair said.

 

“It will if applied enough times,” Malik assured him.  He did not touch Altair but he wanted to.  He waited until they were inside, away from too many eyes before he kissed him and Altair kissed him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> always taking prompts at [my tumblr](http://tellcardtowrite.tumblr.com)


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